The Dark Ages
by Juanita Dark
Summary: It starts with a girl, and ends with goodbye. [Spender]


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THE DARK AGES  
  
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i can't stand the way i was that day/ speechless/ with so much to   
say/ i wish/ i had run away/ but maybe its not too bad/ things didn't   
happen that way/   
at night when there's no one around/ no one has a history/ the dark   
ages last a few hours/ but that's all the time that's needed/ to   
erase memories...  
The Dark Ages - Bedhead  
===================================  
  
He didn't know exactly what he was waiting for. The conference was over and he was leaving. The group of agents he'd come with would most likely leave in the morning. They were, he imagined, still scattered around the bar telling amusing stories - give or take the anecdotes - on the prevailing 'agent of the hour'. The last thing he'd heard as he left the clatter of glasses was Tom Colton waxing vitriolic on one of his cases. Something about Spooky Fox Mulder pulling the case right out from under him. Not that this was new to Jeffrey Spender - he'd been hearing about the latest half-cocked theory according to Spooky Fox since the academy - where it was still spoken in half-hushed voices around corridors and corners, like the legendary bunk it truly was. (A lesson on what not to do if you wanted a career). Not that it mattered. Spender already knew enough about the paranormal and it's affects on the regular and mundane to enter a certain derision whenever he heard the name Fox Mulder. If he sympathised with anyone it was Special Agent Dana Scully: Mulder's new partner. The idea of having to work on a project that no one, himself included, took seriously was punishment he conjectured even Satan thought twice about before dishing out. He doubted Scully knew what hit her. Add that to her background in forensic science and physics, and he suspected the atmosphere in the basement had gained more than a few degrees in pissosity. Anyone that wanted to put themselves in career limbo as willingly as former VCS golden boy, Mulder, had all they got coming to them. But to get assigned to it...? Well. It was incumbent on the young agent's mind that he took his work as seriously as he took himself. Still, he'd laughed silently to himself when he heard that Mulder had caught the suspect despite Colton hitting the roof. The guy was a serious prick.  
  
Rousing himself from a sense of smug satisfaction, he looked up the road, seeing the aureoles the oncoming headlights struck against the traffic. Oddly, he thought of the last time he'd seen his mother. No, if he could, he would try to keep his personal life out of his work. He shook his head, if so, what was he doing waiting for her? Sometimes his ability to contradict himself was irksome. He'd never done it in a meeting - thank God. He saw the car indicating from as far back as three cars away.   
  
He had noticed her at the bar but she had slipped away before he could introduce himself. Actually, he'd been hoping she would disappear so he wouldn't have to. She had taken off her glasses earlier that evening and ever since he kind of knew that the minute he tried to say anything to her his tongue was going to fuck him up. He guessed she was a secretary or clerk - she had had that librarian-esque vibe, which had made her seem safe to talk to. Except when she'd removed the glasses he realised that she actually was remarkably attractive, and he'd felt...intimidated. He had watched her waltz with one of the A.D.s. (Who knew which misinformed federal department had ordained that there was to be a band, dancing and refreshment at this conference? The kind with rhythm, he guessed. No doubt the idea wouldn't an enduring one). It would take less than a few days for all the gory morning-after-stories to filter out to every single field office across the country, get permutated, exaggerated and then filter back in again. The gossip tide. He hadn't realised he was going to add to it.  
  
The car pulled up in front of him and he watched her lean across and scroll down the passenger window. The orange light against her chocolate skirtsuit was a nice contrast. Her name was Lili, Lilia Ormond.   
  
"Put your bag in the back, Jeffrey." she said.  
  
He could only see her lips from the angle he was standing at, they were a dark berry, he guessed. He did as she said and slid into the passenger seat beside her.  
  
"Buckle up, Jeffy." she reminded him, before, not waiting for him to follow her instruction, pulling out abruptly into the road and night.  
  
She drove like a maniac under manners, her utter control of the car disconcerting, to say the least. He noticed the way her skirt hitched up while she drove. Her legs were bare. At some point she'd had the presence of mind to remove her hosiery. He absently buckled his seatbelt while he tried not to gaze at them, compelling as they were. Christ, he shouldn't even be thinking about her that way. He didn't even know if she...He was a little embarrassed to realise that for the last minute he hadn't even looked at her face. The glasses were back on, he was relieved to note. More embarrassing, she'd seen him gaping at her legs. From the expression on her face, she found it amusing. He was sure his alarm at her observation of him showed on his face. She must think he was some kind of capital pervert. Thankfully, she reserved her silent mirth for the driver window and rear view mirror, until some errant driver diverted her attention and she swore rather uproariously. She changed the gears like a nihilist.  
  
Spender stared at the front driver's illegal manoeuvre and sighed mentally, a swear word was the least he deserved. Tom Colton would have charged up there and shoved a badge in his face. However, he acknowledged that he still wasn't used to women swearing. Ordinarily, he didn't like it. Sure, that made him sound like an old maid but, if he confessed to it, he was a somewhat of a romantic at heart. Vulgarity, though he understood its place, bothered him. Yet, he was going to contradict himself again - the woman sitting next to him swearing was another matter entirely. When she said it, it didn't seem coarse, not that the act of swearing was in any way diminished but the aura of intelligence about her somehow made it less threatening. He liked her. From the minute he'd set eyes on her. Jeffrey, you fool, he said to himself, you know nothing about her. She could be 'Mistress of Pain' to any one of a million field agents for all he knew. But it seemed, contradictorily, as if he had known her all his life. And he didn't like envisioning her in leather.  
  
Maybe they had met before? Though he couldn't place her. He couldn't really place anyone up to a certain age. Scratch that high school reunion because his formative years were something of a blur. College he remembered. Looking after his mom, he remembered. Even a sense of his father... But specifics? He supposed it happened to everyone over time. If anything, that flying mother wheel, extra-terrestrial pseudoscientific psychobabble his mother so earnestly believed in had probably made some dark tract of his brain shut down entirely. He loved his mother but he was chagrined to admit what he'd heard coming, in all due sincerity, out of her mouth sometimes. Even if he didn't remember the exact details, he remembered what it felt like realising the world viewed his mother as some kind of big freak. Shame. God forbid his mother should ever cross paths with Fox Mulder. The heavens would fall. He winced. That was a disturbing visual. It wasn't his mother's fault that his father's continued absence and infidelity affected her so radically. But...most women cut off their hair, they didn't go making E.T. their personal guru.  
  
"My, you seem to be thinking hard over there, Agent Spender."   
  
Her voice cut in over his thoughts, the tone rippling on an air of covert friendliness. He guessed it helped in her line of work. She pronounced 'Agent Spender' with a warm absurdity. It reminded him of earlier, when - ordinarily he stopped the familiarity at Jeff or Jeffrey - he'd actually liked her calling him 'Jeffy'. Oh God, Jeffrey, you *are* a fool.   
  
***  
  
She was a wonderful kisser. Somewhere along the line she'd wiped off her lipstick to kiss him yet the pigment still held a little, making her lips look fragile and watercoloured. In the car before they'd entered her apartment building, she had leaned partway across and he had allowed himself to kiss her. What had they been talking about? Nothing and everything, he couldn't remember now. Only the way her hair reflected the streetlights, that she had a small beauty mark by her right eye that he would have missed if she weren't so suddenly close to him. That in the intimate proximity of the car, when she took off her glasses a second time, her beauty was less intimidating and more natural. That the pins in her hair were no longer doing their job and her (dark chestnut?) hair (it looked black but it was really more exotic than that) was starting to uncoil out over her shoulders. Her eyes were dark and mischievous and she smelt of something not sweet or floral but citrus and spiced. Oooh, sweet mercy it had been a long time hadn't it? When was the last time he had thought about being with a woman? No, seriously *thought* about being with a woman, as in the event being imminent? It was a wonder he didn't freeze right there in fatal inexperience. Not that he hadn't...but...it was so long to be having several spanners thrown into his works all at once.  
  
He touched her neck, and she played into his fingers. Trouble. Now he just wanted to kiss her...and the urge wasn't going away...but she was. She paused outside of the open driver's door, holding it open. She looked at him quizzically.  
  
"You are getting out of the car, right?"  
  
He shook it off. "Sure. I was just...remembering something."  
  
Or he thought he was. It felt like deja vu. He got out and she locked the car. Coming over to his side she slipped her arm in his. God, he wanted to kiss her again, he tried not to think about it. That was all she needed - a thirty-year old teenager. They took the stairs. His thoughts were a little alien then. Given that he rarely fell victim to the depraved sensualist within him, it was all the more awkward. He could imagine a woman like her making love to anyone but he couldn't imagine her making love to him. Not even when he wore a dirty mind. Not even when the long illicit looks at her legs had made him imagine himself on his knees before them.  
  
She let him in. She let him over her threshold. She pulled the pins out of her hair, took off her jacket, asked him if he wanted something, and raised an eyebrow when he just stared. His throat felt dangerously tight. Had he imagined her saying: "Don't look like that Jeffrey, it won't hurt."?  
  
She left him and went to the kitchen. He wondered what right he had being there. Her apartment was kind of clerical, like she wasn't there much - but little corners looked like home, probably where she spent the most time. Over there by the computer, or on the couch by the television, next to the bookshelf. He gravitated towards the last. There were academic books on psychology, one on hypno-regression - he wondered absently if she'd ever tried it - a theatre guide, Treasure Island, a book he'd never heard of called A Confederacy of Dunces and two worn-looking video tapes - he made out the script scrawl of Fist of Fury on one, the other was unintelligible. He also noticed a seemingly lost pile of CDs. He read the titles: Once I Was by Tim Buckley, Zenyatta Mondatta and Ghost In The Machine by The Police, Disintegration by The Cure, Violator by Depeche Mode and a collection of songs by Screaming Jay Hawkins. Sitting at the side, he noticed, was another book, the one she was probably reading at the moment, The Lady In The Lake by Raymond Chandler. He picked it up. She came back into the room to see him holding it. She only had one glass.  
  
"Here, you look...like you need it."  
  
He took the glass.  
  
"It's rum." she stated.  
  
"Like Treasure Island." he said and she smiled.   
  
"Yeah, yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum."  
  
She was studying him now. He guessed she hadn't had time to do it in the car. The light in the room owned the subtle darkness of her skin - Christ, she should be in the sun somewhere, he thought. He would like to see her in the sun, with her legs and her half smile.  
  
"You can borrow that if you like."   
  
He remembered the book in his hand and put it down on the coffee table. He set the glass of rum next to it.  
  
"I don't...want to drink that.", he said.  
  
The only thing he wanted to get drunk on was her mouth. He brushed against her, his hands, his lips finding her throat. She closed her eyes for a moment and all he could hear was her breathing, until she said, quite dreamily: "I think..." Pause. "I think, we'd better move."  
  
Her eyes opened again and she caught his hand. They were moving down a short hall. Her bedroom door swung open. They backed into the room - kissing. He remembered kissing and undressing her. He remembered her letting him do it. And he remembered on her lower back a scar - he'd seen ones like it before - a bullet wound. Drunkenly, he'd started to kiss it, and she, naked from the waist up, pulled him away, her hands cupping his chin.   
  
"I'm going to get that thing covered with a tattoo." she drawled, magically.  
  
But she had a corresponding scar on he stomach. Who had shot her? Who had shot this woman, with the discarded glasses, the citrus scent, the kiss like cinnamon? He wanted to ask her but was afraid she'd withdraw from him and the moment would be spoiled. His face in her hands. Her hands seemed cold, so he covered them in kisses. Could he be subsumed in her? Could he offer her what he had? Give up his control to her? He would try. For just one night, he would try to be someone else and not be afraid of making love to her.  
  
And it was beautiful. The way she lay under him, the way she swayed over him. The way the blood rose and her skin darkened in the throes of her passion. The way that it didn't feel cheap afterwards. The way that he didn't stop wanting her. And the bizarre way everything almost screamed - 'We've been here before. Been here before.' and nothing was tarnished. The way he could say: "Lili, Lili, Lili." over and over again like a child, and she still wouldn't mind. The way she squeezed him, the way she caressed him, the way she shuddered against his movements. All good.  
  
Oh Jeffrey, you're *such* a fool.  
  
***  
  
In the dawnlight, he discovered, she, his Lili of the starlight, positively glowed. Lovely. She had dozed for a moment but her sleep was fitful at best. They'd lain awake quite a while. He kept hoping he didn't say anything to destroy it. He thought he had earlier, but she had only rolled into him, scent of spice and musk on her skin and said, quite seriously: "Yes, Jeffy, it's our dirty secret."  
  
It was Sunday. Sunday morning. He'd kissed her hard at the door but he had to let go. He didn't want to. Smiled. She spoke. "I have to get some sleep."...said sadly.  
  
Sleepless. If they could only stay sleepless. Insomniac lovers. She gave him the car keys.  
  
"It's a rental." she said  
  
And she watched him walk backwards and he watched her slowly get diminished in phases behind the mounting steps. Until she was just a blur of tangled hair and blazing sunlight disappearing behind a door. He saw her, barely, from the driver's seat, at her window, her hand splayed over the glass. He made out the words as she mouthed them: Goodbye Jeffrey.  
  
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